[Fwd: PostgreSQL and the KBB GmbH]

Hi everyone,

Just received this from Matin Shiemann. This is probably a good organisation to include in the PostgreSQL Case Studies, when people have the time, etc.

:-)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: PostgreSQL and the KBB GmbH
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 18:40:07 +0200
From: Schiemann, Matin <it(at)kbberlin(dot)de>
To: <justin(at)postgresql(dot)org>
CC: Bernhard Gramberg (E-Mail) <bernhard(at)gramberg(dot)de>

Dear Justin Clift,

the KBB (Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH) intends to
rebuild their in-house database on the base of PostgreSQL.

The KBB is a german government organization which was newly constructed
from July 2002 to unite the major government financed cultural events in
Berlin, Germany. Divisions of the KBB are the Berlin International Film
Festival (www.berlinale.de <http://www.berlinale.de>), The House of the
World Cultures (www.hkw.de <http://www.hkw.de>) and the Berliner
Festspiele GmbH (www.berlinerfestspiele.de
<http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de>) aswell as the Martin-Gropius-Bau in
Berlin (www.groupiusbau.de <http://www.groupiusbau.de>).
The KBB has around 300 employees plus a large number of temporary staff
dealing with the various events hosted by the KBB, the Berlinale alone
employs around 1500 additional people in february each year.

The Database development evolves out of a 12 year old Informix database
with 4GL textbased frontends, which was originally developed for the
Berlinale. Alongside a Database-Project for Filmfestivals called
"DataKal" (www.datakal.cz <http://www.datakal.cz>) and together with the
DataKal Programmers and the programmer of the Berlinale Informix
database, Bernhard Gramberg of Art Software Design ltd. who are all
experienced folks especially in working with cultural institutes and
their special needs we plan to implement a project management tool for
cultural events on the base of PostgreSQL. The tool might even become
something universal if expanded to the needs of the other cultural
events the KBB hosts, such as Theater or Music Festivals which is
intended for the next two years.

The tool will handle a pool of around 120.000 persons and 30.000
companies in an address-module which combines the classification and
meta tagging of persons with powerful document management and mass
mailing capabilities. The estimated growth of data within the first 3
years foresees 300.000 addresses. Starting from the addresses, the tool
will be able to handle a couple of projects at a time. The projects will
then deal with tasks like accreditiation, card
printing, event-management and invitation, accomodation management, film
selection and programming, print media and for sure deliver their
websites with the according data from PostgreSQL.

Main arguments for using PostgreSQL are ANSI SQL compliancy, Native
Interfaces, TCO, referential integrity. I am looking forward to the
multi-master replication modules.

But for first our aim is to run the next Berlinale with this tool, and
our evaluation almost done. We will probably start developing by May 1
2003, and decide wether to run the upcoming Berlinale 2004 with that
tool or not on August 1 2003.

I just wanted you to know...

If you want to use this information for your case-studies or anywhere on
your advocacy site, i'd request that you wait until our final decision
is made.

If you want any further information about this project, do not hesitate
to contact me.

Kind regards,

Matin Schiemann
*Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH*
- Informationstechnik -
mailto: it(at)kbberlin(dot)de <mailto:it(at)kbberlin(dot)de>

********************************************
www.berlinale.de <http://www.berlinale.de/> - www.hkw.de
<http://www.hkw.de/> - www.berlinerfestspiele.de
<http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/>
********************************************